It felt like fate was mocking me when I crossed the line only 80 seconds back after all that had happened. I had opted for a high downforce setup which cost me lots on the straights (I couldn't even pass most other PT's - I simply ran out of steam alongside only to have to let the other car pass again), but I was killing it in sector 1 and through the Porsche curves. I thought that would help me quite some on older tyres and with making less mistakes. In practice I had seen that drop off was a little high going past lap 10, so my plan was 4 stops on 10-lap stints. I knew that I probably wasn't going to get pole with my setup, so I was quite happy with 5th and about 1s down. I figured I would just draft along for a while, as my top speed was 10-15km/h slower than the fastest PT's.
After quite a wild start I ended up behind CJ, who was lagging, which was making it difficult to pass, which I really had to do in order not to lose the lead guys pulling away. CJ lost the car though between Porsche and Ford curves and spun right into me giving me first damage at the end of lap 2. I pulled straight into the pits and came out with a 35 sec gap to the lead. I was in two minds, if I should change my strategy to run longer stints then, but decided not to. I subsequently began questioning fate when I only ever ran into GT's through the Porsche/Ford curves or Indy/Arnage, but never on straights, losing a lot of time in the process.
I pitted at lap 12, and after the first round of stops the gap was down to 20 seconds. Except for a minor slide that cost me some seconds, I managed to keep the gap between 20 and 30 seconds. After another stop, on lap 26 I was making up time and as I was flying through the first part of Indianapolis I suddenly see Furi stationary on the outside and when I look back to the centre of the road, there's another red car (Lancer?) there creeping along. Well, it was until I hit its back and propelled it into the gravel. There was just no room and not enough time to react to anything in that moment. Crept back to the pits, came out about 1:30 down.
There was another off somewhere in there when Randy was off-roading in the esses after Dunlop kicking up a lot of dust, so I went wide to the left in the right-hander to avoid him, got on the grass, made it back onto the track without damage, only to spin on dirty tyres in Tetre Rouge. Jammy, who I had just overtaken as he came out of the pits (very cool moment, by the way!) a lap earlier, passed me back and I went after him about 5 seconds behind.
I still thought I could gain a couple of positions at that point, as I would only have to stop one more time and most others would be stopping twice. Everything went nicely for a while until I lost concentration on Mulsanne, and when I came up to Lout in his Alpine close to Indianapolis, I simply misjudged where I was and completely missed the braking point. Stupid, and completely my own fault. Cue "Creeping back to pits from Indianapolis, part II". That was on lap 36, so juuuust inside the point where I could theoretically make it to the end.
I was actually inside of 1 minute back, gaining, and everyone ahead had one stop left, so it still didn't look too bad. That was until I caught up with Yeratel & Lout at Indianapolis on lap 44. Got by Yeratel through the first one, then went for the inside on the exit to overtake Lout ... when he slightly lost his rear accelerating out and gave me some more damage to my right front. As I would have been very much on the edge of the tyres by the last laps, I thought it better to come in to repair. 1:40 behind when I got out, and managed to get it down to 1:20 by the end, but no position gain in that.
Could have been so much better, but Indy was my fate that night. Oh well, Championship is practically over for me with that result. Congrats to the winners & podiums!
You could do so much more Sam. In ToCA I remember in T8CA I think it was, your start of season record was "WIN-DC-WIN" and repeat...
